San Francisco-based filmmaker and Webby Awards founder Tiffany Shlain has signed on with AOL to create an original eight-episode web series for the company's video hub On Network.

Using archival footage, animation and personal anecdotes, "The Future Starts Here" -- which will be produced by Shlain's own production company The Moxie Institute -- explores human identity and connectedness in the post-internet age. Shlain, who is an adept self-promoter, similarly broached this topic in her 2011 documentary "Connected: An Autobiography About Love, Death and Technology."

Shlain joins a roster of web-worthy celebs -- including Sarah Jessica Parker, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jonathan Adler -- who will soon be launching web series on AOL On Network. Watch the trailer for "The Future Starts Here" below.

Thompson on Hollywood

Born and raised in Manhattan, Anne Thompson grew up going to the Thalia and The New Yorker and wound up at grad Cinema Studies at NYU. She worked at United Artists and Film Comment before heading west as that magazine's west coast editor. She wrote for the LA Weekly, Sight and Sound, Empire, The New York Times and Entertainment Weekly before serving as West Coast Editor of Premiere. She wrote for The Washington Post, The London Observer, Wired, More, and Vanity Fair, and did staff stints at The Hollywood Reporter and Variety. She eventually took her blog Thompson on Hollywood to Indiewire. She taught film criticism at USC Critical Studies, and continues to host the fall semester of “Sneak Previews” for UCLA Extension.